Eye of the Beholder
by darnedchild
Summary: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (A short fic for MHAW Fall 2018 Day Five – Sight)


MHAW Day Five – **Day 5** – Sight

Oh look, not beta'd again. Finished at the last minute. Again.

 **Eye of the Beholder**

Molly sat on her sofa and contemplated whether she wanted to watch an episode of _Grantchester_ or go to bed early. A extra two hours of sleep sounded appealing, but so did James Norton wearing that clerical collar.

Either way, it was time to put on her pyjamas. She hurried into a simple vest, sleep shorts, and an extremely comfortable pair of threadbare bunny slippers before deciding to shuffling into her kitchen in search of a glass of wine.

 _Red or white? Which went better with a handsome Reverend about to turn his back on his job to spend a passionate night in the arms of his one true love?_

She'd just poured herself a full glass of red when her front door rattled.

Molly froze.

"This is it. This is how I die." She took a large gulp of her wine, set the glass aside, and reached for her mobile phone on the counter.

Before she had a chance to thumb the emergency services icon, she heard Sherlock shout her name. "Molly! Open the door. I know you're home."

She rolled her eyes and dumped the phone back on the counter. She hurried to answer the door before he managed to egg any of the neighbours into calling the police with a noise complaint. "It's after nine, I could have been asleep," she complained as soon as she saw him.

"You never go to sleep before eleven." Sherlock pushed past her holding a large metallic silver box in one hand and a leather messenger style bag in the other.

"Why didn't you use your key?" Molly asked as she followed him into the sitting room.

"It was in my pocket and I couldn't reach it. Hands were full." Sherlock stood in the middle of the room and shook his head. "The lighting won't work in here." He turned and swept past her again, heading down the hall to her bedroom.

"Lighting for what? Sherlock?"

He was already pulling his laptop out of the messenger bag when she made it to her room. The silver box was on her vanity. "Better, but not ideal. I suppose we'll have to make do." He opened the laptop and put it next to the box. "Go ahead and sit at the vanity, I'll go get a chair from your office." Then he was down the hall before she had a chance to speak again.

"I, what, fine. But bring my wine when you come back!" Molly called after him.

He returned less than two minutes later, dragging her rolling chair behind him. He handed her glass over and gestured to the vanity again. "Sit." Molly narrowed her eyes. "Please."

She eased onto the delicate chair that matched the pretty white vanity she'd owned since she was a teenager. "Are you going to tell me what's going on or am I going to have to guess?"

"Case," Sherlock replied as he opened the silver box and began pulling items out of it. Molly gasped as he covered every available bit of space with make-up and brushes. "My client works as a make-up artist for a morning talk show. He's arranged for me to come in as a replacement while he's taking the next several days off. I need behind the scene access. He loaned me his 'tools of the trade'."

"You can do make-up?" That was unexpected. All though, she supposed, he probably would have some experience with that sort of thing, John had written about Sherlock 'getting into character' for cases before.

"No. But it shouldn't be too difficult to manage after tonight."

She didn't like where this was going. She took a sip of her wine. "And what is happening tonight, she asks as if she didn't already have a clue," Molly deadpanned.

"I found a few tutorials on-line. They look easy enough to follow." He opened a browser window and loaded a video.

"And you need me because?"

Sherlock blinked. "Because you're a woman."

" _Now_ you notice," Molly grumbled under her breath. His lips thinned as he pressed them together and gave her a look she couldn't quite identify. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I know that much about make-up. We aren't all just born with that knowledge."

"Of course not." He pointed toward the picture on the screen. A beautifully glamourous man with vaguely androgynous features was frozen with a large make-up brush in his hand. A woman with a bare face and pulled back hair was seated next to him. "But you do have a feminine face and I need the practice since I'll be working with several of the female anchors."

"Oh." She nodded. "That makes sense." She took another sip of her wine and set the glass out of the way. "All right. Let's do this. Make me pretty, Sherly."

He grimaced at the butchering of his name. "How much have you had to drink already?"

"Probably not enough." She turned her body to the side so she was facing him directly and lifted her chin. "What's first?"

Sherlock hit play. They watched the artist hold up a bottle of primer and give the product details. As soon as he was ready to move on the next step, Sherlock hit pause. "Looks easy enough. Help me figure out which of these is primer."

Over the next hour they watched the tutorial in small chunks. Soon enough they were working together almost as well as they did in the lab, Sherlock would reach for a brush and Molly would already be holding it out for him.

By the time he started working on her eyebrows, they had moved too close to be sitting knee to knee. At some point he had slid his thigh between both of hers.

"I need you to sit still." He was trying to make her brows symmetrical but Molly kept squirming away.

"I can't help it, it tickles."

"Molly." Sherlock pulled back just enough that she could see the stern set of his lips. "Still."

She tried. She failed, but she really did try.

Sherlock slid his free hand behind her and let his fingers slide into her hair as he cupped the back of her head. Molly froze. He swallowed. "Is this okay?"

"Yep. Fine." She bit her lower lip, thankful they hadn't gotten to her mouth yet.

He moved on to eyeshadow, but she noticed he hadn't removed his hand from her hair. He turned his head to watch the technique of the artist on the screen and she took the moment to watch him. Molly couldn't remember if she'd ever been this close to him for this long before. The urge to kiss him was strong. She clenched her hands into fists on her thighs and drew in a deep breath, which was a horrible mistake because he smelled so sinfully good. Just as he always did.

"Molly?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you." He picked up a small shadow brush and began to blend, the bristles incredibly soft against her skin.

She would have shrugged if they weren't so close or he wasn't cradling the back of her neck while he worked. "It's fine. As you said, I probably wouldn't have been going to bed yet anyway."

"No." He switched to the other eye. "Well, yes, for that, too. I meant thank you for . . . everything. I'm thankful that you're still a part of my life, even after all these years and all the things I've fucked up."

"Oh." That had come out of nowhere, but it was nice to hear. "I'm glad you're part of mine, too." She took a chance and leaned her head toward him until their foreheads touched. "I can't imagine what my life would be like if you weren't around to steal my ginger biscuits and paint my face at ten o'clock at night. Terribly dull, I'm sure."

His fingers flexed and shifted as he urged her to lift her face. "I don't want to imagine what mine would be like without you."

Her breath caught in her throat.

"You are so beautiful, Molly Hooper." He tossed the brush onto the vanity without looking, then slid his newly freed hand along her jaw to join the other in her hair. "Inside and out. It took me so long to see you. Really see you. And then I couldn't force myself to look away, no matter how much I tried."

"Sherlock?"

He moved just a little bit closer, close enough that she could feel his breath against her lips. "May I kiss you, Molly?"

"God, yes."


End file.
